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The Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games, stalled under a lack of organization and expertise among senior management, have less than four years to the opening ceremonies and the clock is ticking loudly.

Time has been wasted. Contracts have yet to be signed with several Ontario municipalities involved. Several venue sites have yet to be decided on, much less had requests for proposals put out to the construction industry. There are no announced sponsorships, no signage, no media partner, no public-service announcements. As of Friday, the official website hasn’t been updated since early July.

Qualified people have left the organization, including Bill Senn, an experienced venue developer. Only last week a vital position, that of project coordinator for venue development, was posted on an Internet job site.

There is a disconnect, presided over by CEO Ian Troop, between those who ran the successful bid for the Pan Ams and those in charge of the games themselves, leaving senior management short of experience in dealing with sports federations, which are key to organizing a multi-sport games.

Next month’s Ontario election should lead to wholesale changes. If the Conservatives are elected, two sources say, a new management team, possibly headed by former Ontario premier Mike Harris, will be brought in. Also in the mix to take over is Chris Rudge, former head of the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and chair of Toronto’s 2012 Grey Cup.

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If Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals win the election and remain in power, McGuinty needs to, at least, remove the Pan Ams from the Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport, which has no experience in this kind of enormous international endeavour, and make the Games a cabinet-level priority. The Pan Ams involve some 325 events and more than 10,000 athletes. By comparison, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics had 86 events and fewer than one-third the number of athletes. Plus, the mountains already were built.

This week, Pan Am officials again waived another deadline for Hamilton to find funding for a velodrome. It is clear, at least here, that major decisions will await the election and any reshuffling of the management deck.

Meanwhile, a proposed bid for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Quebec City is gaining steam. Marcel Aubut, head of the COC, a member of the (mostly silent) board of directors of Toronto 2015 and someone personally anxious to become a member of the International Olympic Committee, is open about bidding for an Olympics in Quebec, which failed in its previous bid for the 2002 Games.

This time, Quebec organizers have hired Populous, a U.S. strategy firm that previously helped Vancouver, London (2012) and Sochi, Russia (2014) win bids. (Because it lacks the 800-metre vertical drop required of the ski hill, Quebec’s bid could include Alpine events at one of Lake Placid, N.Y., Killington, Vt., or Sugar Loaf, Me., the three suitable hills in the eastern part of North America.)

Quebec City next May also will be the site of the SportAccord meeting, an important gathering of representatives of international sports federations. Aubut wants everyone, including the many IOC voters present, to fall in love with his city. It’s not a difficult task.

The 2022 Winter Games will be awarded at the 127th congress of the IOC some time in summer 2015. Whether that session is held before or after the Pan Ams is not yet known; the IOC website says date and place for the congress is TBA.

Further along, the usual suspects have quietly been assembling a 2024 Toronto Summer Olympics bid, following on the technically sound but unsuccessful efforts for 1996 and 2008. Small noises recently were made about a 2020 bid, but mayor Rob Ford squashed that and good for him; the IOC will not award two successive Olympics to the Americas and the 2016 Games are in Rio de Janeiro.

Toronto 2024 backers hoped to take the same path as Rio, meaning stage a successful Pan Am Games (as Rio did in 2007) and then make a successful try for the Summer Games (as Rio did in 2009).

Quebec success in 2022 would eliminate Toronto from 2024 and for years beyond. Likewise, a poorly run Pan Am Games in 2015 — to say nothing of the embarrassment and a $1.4 billion budget sure to swell grotesquely after all the time that has been wasted — will destroy any future Toronto Olympic bids once and for all.

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